Spend Better, Not Less?

Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis is harshly critical of increased City spending under Mayor de Blasio, but she doesn’t have a plan to reduce that spending. Malliotakis held a City Hall press conference this afternoon to criticize de Blasio for “outrageous amounts of money being spent on consultants” in the Department of Education.

Malliotakis regularly criticizes the $85 billion overall size of the City budget and the $15 billion increase in the budget since de Blasio took office. Today I asked Malliotakis how much, if at all, she would cut the $24 billion Department of Education budget. After a lengthy critique of de Blasio’s spending, including the line that de Blasio “has spent the taxpayers money like a Saudi prince,” Malliotakis offered that she’s “looking to make sure that that money is spent properly” but acknowledged that she does not have any plan to reduce the City’s spending.